Time Management

Of all of the personal skills, Time Management is quite possibly the hardest to master.  Rarely are we quick to admit it but most of us could improve our use and management of time.  Of course Time Management is a rather misleading title as in reality these is little we can do to manage time (it does perfectly well without our intervention), what we can do is address our self or life management.

The key to Time Management are not the tools and techniques for increasing your efficiency.  These time and labour saving approaches can give the illusion of increasing time management ability whilst simultaneously avoiding the critical issue, "What is the best use of my time?"

Effectiveness (or as the Americans might call it 'leverage') is the key to real success in Time Management.  We all have a finite amount of time and energy to apply to our jobs and personal lives.  Through self management we need to make sure that we apply ourselves to the things that really matter to us and not get deflected on to the more trivial activates.

Below are a number of resources to help you with your Time Management.  These are in the format of Adobe pdf files.  To view these you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader plug in (if you don't have it in your system currently, it can be downloaded from Adobe's Web site).

How to 'Say No' to tasks that you either don't have time to do or do not contribute to your important goals.

Not every job has the same degree of priority.  Some are urgent, some are important, some both and a few neither.  Use this tool to work out whether Urgency has become a tyrant and is running your life keeping you from doing the truly Important tasks sufficiently well.

Our time is not our own (unfortunately).  We are at the mercy of the Time Bandits, the little things that rob us of a few minutes here and a few minutes there.  Each bandit on its own is small and possibly insignificant but when you add them up you may find that hours are being lost to the little devils.  Find out which are your Time Bandits.

Need some tips?  Here are more than 50 ideas to help you get back in control of your time and to help you beat the Time Bandits.

The core to any time management approach is keeping your eye on the important tasks and not being distracted by the rest.  Use of a Daily To Do list can help you focus on what you must achieve today.

Information Overload is a real problem for many people.  find out how to get back in control of your files, paperwork and e mail, before it takes control of you.

Meetings are probably the number one Time Bandit for many people.  All to often a meeting is seen as the only solution to a situation which is why they are so common in business today.  Use this flow chart to work out if a meeting is really the best way to proceed?

Poorly run meetings can snatch hours of your time away from you right under your very eyes.  Here are a set of Meeting Guidelines designed to help you get the most from meetings in the shortest possible time.

Waiting for minutes of meetings to arrive can be agonising.  In fact it is not uncommon for the minutes of the last meeting to be distributed at the commencement of the next giving no time whatsoever to carry them out.  Use an Action Log to capture the key points of the meeting and distribute to everyone before they disperse.

These resources are provided for anyone to use.  All we ask is that if you share these with others, that you credit PSA Training and Development as the originators.
If there are other resources that you feel would make your life easier, then do drop us a line.